5. Authentic Materials
a. Authentic Materials for Language Learners
Authentic materials are texts produced by native speakers for a non- pedagogical purpose
Bacon Finnemann:1990. Since they are not designed for pedagogical purpose, commonly, they do not come from a course book. They are
not systematically developed in stages for language learners. However, nowadays, there are many experts who prefer to use authentic materials in teaching and
learning English, both written and spoken as an alternative material. A material is authentic when it contains authentic text. According to
Tomlinson 1998, an authentic text is a text which is not written or spoken for language teaching purposes. A newspaper article, a rock song, a novel, a radio
interview and traditionally fairy story are examples of authentic texts. Therefore, we can see such texts from television, newspaper and magazine. In that mass
media, information is spread widely from a place to many other places. In communicating in such media, people naturally use and apply their language as
how they communicate and use their language in their daily life. It surely could be a perfect lab for a language learner.
Nunan 1999 also defines authentic materials as spoken or written language data that have been produced in the course of genuine communication,
and not specifically written for purposes of language teaching. Therefore, by using authentic materials, a teacher can bring the students the authentic data from real
world context into classroom. They can practice reading authentic and genuine language which is used in real life as the language and the students themselves
really occur. For another purpose, the foreign language learners also can be introduced to the culture of the native people through the authentic materials.
Moreover, Gebhard 1996 sees authentic materials as a way to contextualize language learning. It means that authentic materials are also
effective in providing the students with the context of every text. When they normally study the pedagogical materials, they tend to focus more on content and
meaning rather than the context. On the other hand, authentic materials provide rich source of context in language instead of the language which are only provided
by the teacher. Hence, authentic materials undoubtedly do have effect towards language
teaching and learning process. These are the differences between authentic and non-authentic materials:
Authentic Materials Non-authentic Materials
Language data produced for real life communication purposes.
They are specially designed for learning purposes.
They may contain false starts, and incomplete sentences.
The language used in them is artificial. They contain well-formed sentences all
the time.
They are useful for improving the communicative aspects of the language
. They are useful for teaching grammar.
Table 1: Authentic materials vs non-authentic materials Adams, 1995; Miller, 2003
From Table 1 above, it is clearly shown that authentic material has essential differences towards non-authentic materials. Authentic material may contain false
starts and incomplete sentences; however, it is powerful to provide the students products of real life communication.
b. Advantages of Authentic Materials
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